I am a Tombstone Tourist: someone who loves to wander cemeteries. I find it akin to visiting a museum: an opportunity to enjoy rarely seen sculpture, intricate carvings, and amazing architecture, all in a tranquil outdoor setting. This blog is about cemetery culture, art, history, issues of death, and genealogy - subjects of current relevance. I usually find something that intrigues me and makes me want to dig deeper. Care to join me? Read on...

Friday, October 7, 2011

The Old Slave House – Equality, Illinois

NOTE:

In
honor of October being the month of Halloween - and other things spooky - all
of my blogs this month will deal with a haunted location and the cemetery that
ties into the story.

Enjoy
and make this a spook-tacular autumn!! ; )

~

Sign posted at drive

In
the 1800’s it was formally called Hickory Hill. It’s now known as the old Crenshaw Place, or the Old Slave
House. And it’s claimed to be one of the most haunted places in the southern
part of Illinois.

Located
near Equality, Illinois, in Gallatin County, the large, two-story pseudo Greek
Revival

John H & Sinia Crenshaw

Hickory Hill - also known as
the Old Crenshaw House

style house is situated on top of a windswept hill, overlooking the
Saline River. John Hart Crenshaw
had the house supposedly built for his wife, Sinia Taylor Crenshaw and their
five children. But research has
revealed the most important function of the house was to aid as a place to
stash kidnapped free blacks before sending them into slavery, a reverse Underground Railroad.

Old Shawneetown Bridge
over the Ohio River

John
Crenshaw became deeply involved in the slave trade during the 1820’s. He was charged several times with
kidnapping, and became a slave trader in 1827. The first documented case against his
involved a black indentured servant named Frank Granger that Crenshaw kidnapped
and took to Kentucky in 1828. The
second kidnapping case followed right on the heels of the first and involved a
free black woman named Lucinda and her two children. Crenshaw kidnapped the three and took them to Barren County
Kentucky in 1828 to be sold into slavery. Crenshaw was also known as John
Granger, (pronounced more like Cringer) due to regional dialects and accent.

Hickory Hill

In
1829, Crenshaw and his brother, Abraham, bought the land where Hickory Hill
would be built. It would be almost
five years, in 1834, before ground was broken for the house, and another four
before it was completed in 1838. The lavish house was furnished with European
artwork and furnishings located on the first and second floors, where the
family lived.

A Whipping Post

The third floor was
constructed of thicker walls with over a dozen cells, about the size of horse
stalls, all equipped with heavy metal rings and chains. A whipping post was located at either
end of the hallway. Windows at each end of the hall provided the only light and air to the attic. It
would only be after Crenshaw’s and his wife’s deaths, when new owners took over
that the true secrets of the attic would come to light.

Map of Southern Illinois

Meanwhile,
Crenshaw bought his first salt works in Gallatin County. Few men were
interested in the harsh work and brutal conditions required to mine salt, so
Crenshaw used slave laborers and indentured servants.

Although Illinois was a
‘free state’ where slavery was not

Only Surviving Record

allowed, an exception had been granted to
Crenshaw for slaves to be leased for one-year terms for use in the salt mines
in Gallatin, Saline and Hardin Counties. Illinois also allowed indentured
servitude; the contracting of work for a specific period of time in exchange
for food, shelter, and sometimes passage.
Crenshaw owned over 30,000 acres of land and leased numerous salt mines
from the government. He had over
700 slaves working for him in 1830. At one
time it was said that Crenshaw had made so much money he paid 1/7 of all taxes
collected in Illinois.

It is from his illegal trafficking of humans into slavery that much of his vast fortune was made.

Crenshaw
is best known for creating a reverse
Underground Railroad in Illinois. He and his hired men would capture free
blacks from the North and smuggle them across the Ohio River into Kentucky
where they would be “sold down the river” and into slavery in the southern
states.

Hickory Hill

Runaway Slaves

When
the house at Hickory Hill was built, a secret wagon entrance was constructed in the
back of the house.Covered wagons
carrying kidnapped blacks and indentured whites would go directly into this
entry. Then the kidnapped would be taken up the back stairs to the third floor
attic of his home.There they were
imprisoned in cells, tortured, raped, whipped, and sometimes murdered.
According to local legend, there was also a secret tunnel from the basement to
the Saline River so that the kidnapped could be put on boats quickly and
inconspicuously.

Slave Auction

Crenshaw
then devised a plan to begin a slave-breeding program in the attic. A slave named Uncle Bob was used as the stud breeder
to provide Crenshaw with cargo to sell off to the south. A pregnant black woman would bring more
money at auction in a slave state. An adult able-bodied slave could bring $400
or more. A child could be sold for
around $200. It was said that Uncle Bob sired more than 300 children in that upstairs
attic.

John H. Crenshaw

Crenshaw
was finally indicted in 1842 for the kidnapping of Maria, his cook, and her
seven children. Because of his
clout and financial standing in the community, he was found not guilty. (If he had been found guilt, no jail
time would have been served; the only penalty was a fine of $1,000 allowed by
the Black Code of 1819.) But
people in the area talked and suddenly Crenshaw’s methods were being
questioned. His mill was burned
and his standing as an upright and moral man in the community was waning. Business in the salt works began to
decline as more profitable salt was discovered in Ohio and Virginia. Crenshaw
was now watching his empire dissolve.

Rumor
has it that it was during this period of time that Crenshaw brutally beat
several female slaves. In
retaliation, a group of male slaves attacked Crenshaw and during the assault
Crenshaw’s leg was severed with an axe.
Following this attack, most of the slaves were sold off.

Equality, Illinois

The
Crenshaw’s left Hickory Hill in 1850 and moved to Equality, Illinois. Crenshaw continued farming, but also
became involved in railroads and banks. The Hickory Hill house was sold in
1864.

Crenshaw
died December 4, 1871, his wife, Sinia, in 1881. Both are

Hickory Hill Cemetery

Toppled Crenshaw Stone

buried in a tiny, forgotten cemetery down a lonely
dirt road. The cemetery is also
known as Hickory Hill and is located to the northeast of the house. It is said to be the oldest cemetery in
Gallatin County. It
is fitting note that Crenshaw’s stone has been toppled off of its pedestal, now
laying flat on the ground

Old Slave House in the Fifties

In
1906, the Crenshaw House was purchased by the Sisk family. The true horrors of what had occurred
on the third floor were then unmasked.
The slave quarters were dismantled soon after but talk spread and by the
1920’s tourists from around the country were arriving to see the attic and hear
the stories of the Old Slave House.
George Sisk decided to capitalize on the history and by the 1930’s, was
advertising that you could tour the house where “Slavery existed in Illinois,”
for only 10 cents for adults and a nickel for children.

Third Floor Attic

It
was during these tours that people began to report odd occurrences on the third
floor; unseen fingers touching passersby, strange noises, rattling chains,
whispering voices, hushed sobbing, and the feeling of being watched. Legend has it that the Crenshaw House
is haunted by those who were held captive there.

Old Slave House in the '90's

From
the thirties to the mid-90’s, the Old Slave House was visited by many ghost
hunting groups, psychics, and paranormal investigators. Many reported feelings of unrest and agony trapped up there. It was on October 31, 1996 when the
Sisk’s closed the house due to their age and declining health.

Courtesy Saluki Times

In
December 2000, the State of Illinois acquired the house and two acres of land
from George Sisk, Jr. And in 2004
the National Park Service declared the Crenshaw house, aka the Old
Slave House, as a station in the ‘Reverse Underground Railroad Network to
Freedom’ program, thus acknowledging the sadistic part that John Crenshaw
played in condemning free blacks and indentured servants to lives of slavery. But no plans were made to reopen the house.

Courtsey Saluki Times

Earlier
this year, the Center for Archaeological Investigations at Southern Illinois
University in Carbondale began doing digs at the house. Working with the Illinois Historic
Preservation Agency, the group has a three-year grant to undertake historical,
architectural and archaeological research on the site. The archaeological
excavations ended August 1, 2011.
The state says there are still no current plans to reopen the house to the
public.

Hickory Hill - The Old Slave House

Crenshaw's Tombstone

It
remains to be seen what more is discovered about the house and property with
these investigations. One thing is
for sure, while John Hart Crenshaw was not the only slave trader in the state
of Illinois; he became the most notorious, known as one of the most ruthless men in
this state’s history.

About Me

I
love wine and will take any chance to sip, savor and share it! Hence, Joy’s JOY
of Wine http://joysjoyofwine.blogspot.com,
a weekly blog about all things wine. I've been in the industry for 15
years as a winery owner, marketing director, speaker, writer, wine judge, and
100% vino girl!

I'm
also a professional freelance magazine and book writer uncorking articles about
wine, food, history, travel, cemetery history and culture. My interest in
cemetery culture led to another great, or maybe I should say
"grave" gig, my weekly blog: A Grave Interest http://agraveinterest.blogspot.com where I get to travel around the country and speak about cemetery topics for genealogy, history and
education conferences.

I suppose you could say that wine is my
passion, and cemeteries are my diversion ... into another world.

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